


second of december

by charade



Category: Tokyo Ghoul
Genre: Angst, Gen, Vague Suicidal Ideation, depression probably, societal expectations and all that bs
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:54:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 604
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27853750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charade/pseuds/charade
Summary: A little angsty birthday drabble about expectations, adulthood, and the passage of time.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 8





	second of december

**Author's Note:**

> It's Uta's birthday, and you better bet I wrote clown angst for this clown's birthday, too. This one is an incredibly self-indulgent vent fic, though. You've been warned. 
> 
> The fic's rated general, but it probably hits different the older you get. It's also gen, but you don't have to squint too hard to see conflicted pining, if you want that.

He wishes he didn’t know his birthday. So many ghouls don’t. Don’t have any idea how old they are. Could just change the count, turn back time, at least a little. Wouldn’t really help, though. Itori might play along, but she’s known him for too long for it to work. And Renji—

Renji had told him to grow up. Every second of the past few weeks that’s all that's been playing through the circuits of his brain when he gives it a spare moment.

It had been so easy, when he’d been young and already on top of his little corner of the world. Might as well be, since he’d die before he got old, more likely than not. Only, he didn’t.

He wishes Roma were still around. But it isn’t that she’d ever explain it, her reasons for choosing to look like that, other than perhaps to say it was a good joke. It was just more fun. And maybe that was all there was to it.

And what about for him?

He doesn’t know. It had been the only way he’d been able to put it into words, falling off that rooftop, even to himself. That otherwise, it’d be no fun at all.

Renji wouldn’t even have laughed at him, if he heard. He’d just scrunch up his brow the way he does, look confused, or concerned, or overflowing with some other emotion with enough intensity to crease his skin like that. Uta can only imagine.

He wonders, if they were still here to ask, if Donato and Roma would have given him the same answer. Age, young or old, just a costume to play a role in. 

Is that all it means? To rewrite his character a little? Is that growing up, Renji-kun? Do grown-ups run these sorts of things over and over in their heads?

His phone buzzes again. He ignores it and rolls over so he doesn’t have to see the display light up directly.

He told Itori and Nico he didn’t want to go out this year, or even go over and drink. That he just wasn’t in the mood. Plenty of adults spent their birthdays out drinking, though, so this doesn’t count as any progress.

If only Renji had finished it, right there, right in the middle of the rush of it. What a wonderful joke, to be killed to the words ‘grow up.’ He imagines the irony of it would even dawn on Renji, eventually. He’d have stayed with him, just like that. As a fling from adolescence, frozen eternally like Peter Pan. Maybe Renji would tell his grand nieces and nephews about him, that strange man with his tattoos and piercings that he’d never understood, not even once.

He wonders if Renji will call or text. He wonders if that's what he wants.

When Yoshimura came and took his little raven away, it had hurt, just a little bit. The idea that there would be this divide between them, now. He’d either been a fool to think that, or a prophet. The distance to the 20th ward was nothing compared to the distance from his world to the quiet, regimented world of Yoshimura’s cafe. And that, too was nothing to the way that distance grew with time.

Renji changed, and he stayed the same. Was that it? Something like that. So it's his fault, right?

The phone goes dark, but he doesn’t roll back over. Maybe if he never looks at the time again, he can pretend, pretend another year hasn’t gone by, another dozen new kilometers between him and where he’s supposed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> If I pretend the title is a reference to george saunders instead of me having no idea what to write does that make it sound impressive?
> 
> I actually wrote this almost a year ago, which makes it hurt even more, because, you know, the passage of time and all that jazz. Yeah, I'm still mad about the way Renji's words and that arc were handled. In a lot of ways, Uta is more grown up than Renji, but they aren't the ways society wants one to grow up, and I still have a lot of feelings about that probably just to spite myself. So does Uta, though, probably. Weird mostly aesthetic distant clown feelings.
> 
> There's so much more to Uta's character than angst and pining, and yet these are the drabbles my brain spits out over and over. I am sorry Uta, you deserve better.


End file.
